Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

On the Death of Harrison

A WAIL! a plaintive, wide, and fearful wail!

The air is full of deep and sickening wo;

A nation’s eyes are dim, their faces pale,

The chosen of their hearts in death is low!

O, Death! in wild, terrific majesty,

Thou stand’st before us here;

Ah, yes, we had forgotten thee,

Thou, who art ever near.

We were too full of joy, too full of trust

In MAN,

Forgetful of the mandate, “dust to dust,”

And while bright hope began

To wax into firm confidence, and we spoke aloud

Of the dark future, as if even now

It was our own,

THOU,

O Death! all silent and alone,

Prepared stood, our thoughtless hope in gloom to shroud.

O, ’tis a fearful thing

To think that, while a nation’s clamours rose and fell,

While passion raged o’er all the land,

And strife waved back and forth its clenched hand,

And victory’s shout rose up from hill and shaded dell,

And triumph spoke, and proudly said, “All’s safe and well”—

Thou ever wert above us with thy raven wing!

And on that day,

Than which the sun, in its long tireless way,

Hath seen none more sublime,

Nor will see, till the end of time,

When the great chief, whom trembling hope had sought,

And from his humble state with acclamations brought,

Took now the nation’s seat;

While millions of men’s hearts in fond affection beat,

And rose a thrilling cry,

To which the sea, the desert rock, the crowded city gave

A wild, long, glad reply,

A universal, warm “all hail.”

O, Death! thou, too, wert by,

Thinking how soon would rise the nation’s wide and long and plaintive wail.

To thee

How strange must often seem the world’s fond pageantry,

And strange too, to thy keen, well-judging eye,

Man’s too fond trust in dying man, while in our breast

HE enters not, to whom a nation’s hopes address’d

May be full confident; for He

Holds ever in his grasp futurity;

And, in his mighty course, tramples, O Death, on thee!